this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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I wonder how long until all those people always glorifying atomic energie come here...
Usually this community is full of them even in threads only talking about renewables.
This is one of the main problems with atomic energy that we haven't got any idea how to solve - Germany got pretty much all of their uranium from Russia - France from an unstable country like Niger - it's just not something you can extract easily in countries that care about their citizens so it'll always come from a shitty place.
I wonder how the Venn diagram looks between those people that defend atomic everywhere and the people telling you all about how bad electric cars are because of their batteries...
You mean the realists who want to eliminate carbon emissions with more than wishful thinking? Or the people trying to educate against decades of the oil and gas corporations' anti-nuclear propaganda and fearmongering?
Ah yes nuclear energy only takes 20 years to build a new reactor. Ah the most expensive form of energy generation let's invest in that.
Ah yes, much better to keep building new coal or gas plants instead. "Fuck the planet, we're trying to save a dime."
Good strawman where did I say build coal or gas instead? How are you saving the planet when 1 reactor takes 20 years?
Because that's what's happening. Countries are building and reopening fossil fuel plants.
In 20 years that reactor can make up for thousands of tons a year of CO2. That's the same argument people have been using for 60 years, and here we are now. That it takes time is no excuse not to start.
Which country? Country's are investing in renewables you know the energy source that's cheaper and quicker to deploy than nuclear.
Nuclear is bad for your grid it's not flexible. Look at Germany since they stopped using nuclear they where able to use way more solar and wind which previously had to be turned off because nuclear is not flexible.
I think you have to mention Germany and energy in the title to summon them.
Doesn't this apply to almost any form of power generation? Fossil fuels and raw materials for nuclear fuels are often imported from undemocratic or unstable countries. As are many of the raw materials required for renewable power generation and storage.
Using this as an argument againt nuclear power is as intellectually dishonest as the people using it as an argument against electric cars.
Or people citing rain forest balsa wood in wind turbine blades as their greatest concern while being totally fine with lignite coal.
First two countries for known reserves are Australia and Canada, together they hold around 40% of all the uranium reserves of the planet. Uranium could also be extracted from seawater, obviously at a much higher price.
It's just that it's easier to extract it where exploitation rights for land is cheap. But that's unfortunately also true for many materials we need for renewables
Yeah but even though we're using the cheapest Uranium possible atomic power is STILL much more expensive than renewables - I wonder how insane the prices would be if you only took Uranium from good sources.
Also those costs almost never include the cost of securing the waste for thousands of years since you can't just leave the waste laying around out of fear of dirty bombs.
Sure it looks decent in a vacuum but with all the factors playing into it from Uranium being a limited resource that costs a lot to the waste-management it's just much more expensive than just spending the money you'd need to buy one plant on renewables and energy-storages that are also ready to go a lot faster...
the price of atomic energy is like 10% coupled to the price of uranium. the equipment, the salaries, the security measures, all those things are so much more expensive compared to the fuel.
people rarely grasp what 4 magnitudes of energy density increase mean.
yeah but how much more is Uranium if it's mined in Canada compared to the one from Niger or Russia?
sure it's not the main cost-driver but it's not irrelevant either.
Also: an installed solar-panel is very cheap in maintenance - and most of the running costs of are heavily influenced by inflation, too It just doesn't make sense to push for building more atomic reactors - keeping the ones already there running IS making sense but building new ones that may start producing energy in 10 years AND are massively expensive is just not a reasonable investment
solar alone is never going to cover your needs. the moment you add the cost of battery storage, nuclear is definitely cheaper. yes, even new construction. for now. when the cost of batteries go down to 1/10th of what it's today, this might change of course.